The CV's were ordered with fingers crossed after lots of research and incomplete information sewn together. I got them out of the box and when they slid onto the Corvette shafts I threw my hands up yelling YES !!! ..I equipped my garage with metal shaping tools and machines over the past year, I'll be hand forming the body myself with both inner and outer skins. I'm not fond of fiberglass. Cheers Vinny

Looks amazing! Check out the chassis I'm working on. Pretty much the front and the back remain with the original steel chassis, but we managed to cut out the middle tub and replace it with carbon fibre. I reckon, if it was used in race versions of the car, it could do big damage. We're talking about at least 40kg weight-saving and eventual increase in stiffness. As far as i recall, that middle bit was the weakest in most Lotus 7/Caterham 7 - style kit cars; a side impact would essentially do more than break your ribs even with full roll cage; so thus the reason for designing this carbon fibre tub. Do you think there's a market for it?

Last edited by 7Fan7 on March 28, 2017, 8:37 am, edited 1 time in total.

In your model above it looks like you have a couple of tubes to indicate a front roll hoop or dashboard? I think they need to move back a bit. and then that provides a place for a "W" truss above the driver's legs that provides nodes for the front suspension box to attach at.

Marcus, I did a drawing on top of the model that hopefully shows the 'W' you described. I see how it will add strength to the front suspension crossmember. is this what you were getting at?, -Vinny

Vinny that's what I'm describing but it need to be in the plane of the upper rails. So the outer part of the "w" is already there as the upper rail, then you need that cross piece at the upper rail level where the upper rail changes direction to go back straight along the sides of the cockpit anyway. The two tubes you need to add are the two center parts of the "W".

If it's perched up on those little stilts it won't really stiffen up the whole car. You can't really triangulate every piece of the car, the next best thing is you need to make one piece of every side of the car ( top, bottom, left and right ) to have a perfectly stiff place. That means the two top rails can not move front or back compared to each other any more. So this is the first big win to make the car stiff. After this you want to keep making each section stiff, but that first stiff section makes a huge difference.

I'm not completely sure what the driver and the pedals look like in your car. If you can't drop that "W" down to the upper rail, you will need to raise the upper rail to the "W". The upper rail should join directly with the tubes behind the driver's shoulder. There is a small step there now and all the forces in the chassis will try to bend that little piece of tube there. The upper rail does not need to be one level piece, but it needs to connect directly at each bulkhead without cantilevering pieces of it. I think you would find very large forces at that step behind the driver's shoulder.

The same way I am suggesting putting that red cross wise tube between the upper rails in front, you will need a similar piece in back going across the frame about where you flywheel is. When the frame changes width it needs a cross piece to take away the bending forces on those angled joints. You can put a mount to hang your transaxle and rear of your engine there. If you opted for a trailing arm suspension your whole suspension would mount on this bulkhead. Just trying to describe that area, not push you any direction...

Thanks Marcus, I dropped down the "w" at the scuttle area and added some upper tubes similar to the Tornado chassis posted on the previous page here. I will need to make a model of myself to insert into the car, this will hopefully aid in pedal placement and whether I'll need to drop the floor, elbow room etc. . The rear upper cross member above the trans may be a bolt-in affair, not sure yet but I'll know once the trans/engine is in place. Working on the side pontoons now and I'm leaning towards to GT40 type that angle upwards as the go out away from the chassis, in a triangle arrangement throughout. -Will post pics here as I progress. Many thanks, -Vinny

Working on the dash/scuttle area, added the 'W' with 2 x-members. Gonna work my way forward and down towards the nose. I made a scale body for reference and its really helping to see where thing need to go. Cheers, -Vinny.

Looks amazing! Check out the chassis I'm working on. Pretty much the front and the back remain with the original steel chassis, but we managed to cut out the middle tub and replace it with carbon fibre. I reckon, if it was used in race versions of the car, it could do big damage. We're talking about at least 40kg weight-saving and eventual increase in stiffness. As far as i recall, that middle bit was the weakest in most Lotus 7/Caterham 7 - style kit cars; a side impact would essentially do more than break your ribs even with full roll cage; so thus the reason for designing this carbon fibre tub. Do you think there's a market for it?

If you're sitting it under a full width bodyshell, like the Mercedes CLK GTR, have you considered turning the side trellis' into 3-dimensional 'torsion box' structures? It would add a great deal to your overall stiffness, and would also offer a better degree of side impact protection?

This is a front engined (Costin-Lister) chassis, but shows the basic approach:

Sam, that trellis/sill is in the design, I have a gas tank to fit that will hopefully be at least 12 gallons and it might be located in that area. I'm still working out whether to box it or have it come upward to meet the top of the sill, like in the picture attached here, Thanks for you comments, Cheers -Vinny

If you're sitting it under a full width bodyshell, like the Mercedes CLK GTR, have you considered turning the side trellis' into 3-dimensional 'torsion box' structures? It would add a great deal to your overall stiffness, and would also offer a better degree of side impact protection?

This is a front engined (Costin-Lister) chassis, but shows the basic approach:

Hey Sam_68! I'm currently working on a partial carbon fibre chassis for Lotus 7 -style kit cars! I'm doing a quick survey, where I describe the features of the chassis, to assess the kit car enthusiasts' perspective on the product. It would be great if you could spare 2 minutes to answer this survey, which I'm conducting as part of a university project. All answers are anonymous! The link to the survey is below. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask!

Quote:Cruising youtube, this reminded me of your build. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KkIcm2eYh8..Wow, that's some build he's doing. His YouTube channel also shows a locost and a 31 street rod he's built. He could be a member of this forum. -thanks Vinny

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